Find your child’s grade
Quick Look
Let’s Go Learn’s DORA web application is an online reading placement and diagnostic assessment for homeschoolers. It is not a high-stakes, summative test like state testing programs. DORA diagnoses specific areas of reading knowledge that explain why a student is struggling or doing well. Through detailed analyses, reports, and progress monitoring, DORA helps parents and teachers understand exactly what students need to learn in order to be successful readers. Discover more details, examples, and explanatory videos about DORA below.
Our placement test and assessments analyze mastery of grade-level reading objectives and identify learning gaps.
For 20+ years, Let’s Go Learn has helped homeschool parents teach their children.
- Our research-based reading scope and sequence offers depth and breadth.
- Our adaptive placement test analyzes mastery by topic and grade-level equivalency.
- Our reports identify learning gaps by topic and grade level.
- Our online instruction uses placement data to assign lessons that close learning gaps.
In addition to reading placement, our online platform significantly supports your child’s reading growth and achievement.
- Uses our research-based scope and system for each grade level
- Adapts up and down to a child’s mastery regardless of child’s grade
- Offers child a game-like experience as they answer test items
- Provides parents or home teachers with easy-to-read reporting
- Identifies reading learning gaps
- Includes skills-based quizzes and subtopic tests to monitor academic growth
- Provides optional online learning that addresses specific learning gaps
Let’s Go Learn provides homeschool parents with the tools they need to make instructional decisions.
We know the purpose of placement is to advance your child’s learning, so we have designed accurate and easy-to-read reading placement reports. These are available immediately after your child completes the test. For example, the Summary of Scores Report describes a high-level view of your child’s performance.
- A legend at the top describes score ranges for each reading domain for every grade level.
- Reading content is divided into seven skills: high-frequency words, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, spelling, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.
- Your child’s raw score and grade level are shown for each skill.
- An overall summary of your child’s reading grade level is included in the report.
- Below the legend, skills (called sections) are displayed and an instructional goal for each skill is shown.
- Every skill either has a raw score and corresponding grade level or is shown as NT (Not Tested).
- As a parent, you can now present instruction at the level your child needs in order to grow reading skills, regardless of their age or grade. It doesn’t matter if your child is below, at, or above grade level, you have all the information you need to make decisions.
Reading Diagnostic Assessments
DORA The Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment is a K-12 web-based assessment that diagnostically evaluates students’ reading abilities.
Reveals a student’s unique reading profile across multiple areas
Aligned to Common Core, TEKS, and other state standards
Engaging interactive technology features a combination of audio, text, and multimedia images
DORA Dyslexia Screener DORA DS provides a valid and reliable means to screen all students quickly online and accurately for dyslexia, as required by many states.
Checks for mouse or touch-screen dexterity bias when students are screened
Provides instant results for teachers and administrators
Integrated into the greater LGL platform for a total solution: screener to full diagnostics
DORA Phonemic Awareness DORA PA provides a thorough assessment of oral phonemic awareness skills.
Measures nine essential phonemic awareness skills
Evaluates non-readers or struggling readers with audio and picture-only items
Automates oral one-on-one phonemic awareness diagnostics
DORA Spanish/EDELL Evaluación Diagnostica Español de Lectura en Línea is a diagnostic assessment of student Spanish reading abilities.
Measures seven essential subskills of Spanish reading
Reveals a student’s unique reading profile automatically
Instant diagnostic and prescriptive individual student reporting
Ideal for K-12 English Language Learners and adult ESL programs
Common Questions
How does our placement test identify gaps caused by learning loss or unfinished learning?
Our test treats students separate from their grade level. This means that if a 6th grade student takes it, the items will not be limited to 5th to 6th grade, as in many benchmark tests and screeners. The test will find each student's gaps across a K-12 grade range. Optional online instruction driven by student scores is available in LGL Reading Edge.
How does our placement test measure student progress?
Our placement test is made up of seven sub-tests, which can be given in parts. Individual parts such as phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension can be given. Alternatively, you can give even smaller quizzes in specific areas such as short vowels, beginning sounds, or 5th-grade comprehension.
Is our placement appropriate for children who have IEPs?
Yes, our placement can identify a student's present levels very precisely--a key tool in writing accurate IEPs and setting appropriate goals.
How are phonics tested?
When testing phonics, our test finds the student's instructional point in the phonics linear sequence of skills, starting with beginning sounds and ending with multi-syllabic words.
How does our test deal with the assessment of decoding skills?
It breaks decoding into multiple sub-tests. Students successful in decoding need to be able to use skills in sight words or high-frequency words, phonics, phonemic awareness, and even spelling. All of these areas are tested to give parents the most insight into a child's diverse set of skills and strategies when encountering unknown words.
How does our test evaluate phonics abilities in children who have very strong word knowledge already?
This is a great question. Especially with older students, word recognition skills may be very high. Our test assesses each phonics principle or skill in a sequential scope and sequence in a set of 10 questions. Within each set, half of the target words are nonsense words. By using this strategy, we can determine whether children actually understand each phonics principle. A breakout of types of errors is also provided. As you would guess, for older children who have not quite mastered phonics, it is often the case that 100% of their errors are with the non-words.
How does DORA compare to other types of assessments, such as iReady, STAR, or MAP-ELA?
This is a very broad question. DORA is essentially a multiple-measure diagnostic assessment, designed to explain why a student is struggling or doing well, rather than simply to measure summative assessment outcomes. So if DORA says a student is at grade level 1.17 in phonics, you also know that the student is working on short vowels. Scores are tied to specific skills and concepts, unlike in other assessments that focus on providing data for school administrators, who mainly want data for accountability purposes. The best way to evaluate and compare is to look at sample reports from each of these assessments. One other item that separates DORA from other assessments is that DORA is a series of tests.
Does our placement test measure phonological awareness?
Phonological awareness is a broad skill that includes manipulating and identifying oral language – parts such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes. Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. We measure in three ways. One measure that is included in our test is a phonological awareness screener. We also have a stand-alone test that measures both phonemic awareness and phonological awareness. In addition, we have a Dyslexia Screener that includes a phonological awareness screener.